Propaganda story attempts to justify Gitmo, torture

Report: Ex-Gitmo detainee joins al-Qaida in Yemen

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer Maggie Michael, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 23, 10:56 am ET

CAIRO, Egypt – A Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaida branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.

The announcement, made this week on a Web site commonly used by militants, came as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year. Many of the remaining detainees are from Yemen, which has long posed a vexing terrorism problem for the U.S.

The terror group's Yemen branch — known as "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" — said the man, identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo about a year ago and from there went to Yemen, which is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home.

The Internet statement, which could not immediately be verified, said al-Shihri was the group's second-in-command in Yemen, and his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/01/downvote-bots-fight-propag...

Government propagandists, their hired private contractors and useful idiots are creating "downvote bots" or scripts to bury stories which question the government.

Anyone who has posted news items questioning the government's version of 9/11, the government's unquestioning support for Israel, or a host of other topics has probably noticed that all of their recent stories get downvoted virtually simultaneously, which defies the laws of probability.

One free, simple scripting program to create automatic downvotes of certain topics or news posters is called "Greasemonkey", which is commonly used on large social news sites such as Reddit.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-deal-with-governmen...

How should we deal with the onslaught of American and Israeli government-sponsored bloggers defending those governments' actions (see this and this)?

Well, one way is to ask bloggers who appear to be parroting pro-goverment propaganda without any thought the following question:

Has the American, Israeli and/or any other government directly or indirectly instructed or requested that you write supporting any of their actions, policies or positions, or helped to organize or in any way supported you in making any writings?

This is a very helpful question.

Why?

Well, they will respond yes, assuming that they are an honest person writing in response to one of the governments' calls for pro-government blogging.

Indeed, Air Force regulations require that the blogger identify themselves as military.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/01/government-heavily-manipul...

The U.S. government long ago announced its intention to "fight the net".

As revealed by an official Pentagon report signed by Rumsfeld called "Information Operations Roadmap":

The roadmap [contains an] acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.

"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads.

"Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on.***

Hello community,

Often times, opponents of the 9/11 truth movement will try their methods of armchair psychology at analyzing 9/11 truthers, claiming that we WANT to believe that 9/11 was an inside job. They claim that we believe the "real" truth (official story) is just too boring. John McCain made this charge in his foreword to the Popular Mechanics propaganda book.

Over at JREF, an entire thread is dedicated to asking about the experiences of "former truthers," people who were briefly on our side but were then swayed back to official story belief after having read Popular Mechanics, 911myths(dot)com, etc. A forum regular there, Parky76, says+the+following:

___________________________________________________________________________
i remember how scared my mom was when i spouted all the conspiracy theories at her. she was not happy at all that i was saying all these things.

i text messaged my ENTIRE family: "i have seen a new video, which shows compelling evidence, that our own government was responsible for 9-11!!"

i got zero responses...=)

UPDATED AND BETTER! 9/11 & NWO:  MEANS, MOTIVE, and OPPORTUNITY - Parts I & II

"The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today." President George W. Bush

"It is important for the American People to understand, there are cold blooded killers, who want to come to our homeland, and wreak havoc through death."  -  George W. Bush

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”  (Applause.) George W. Bush

“The election is over.  We won.”  (Reporter’s voice - “How do you know that?”)  “Its all over but the counting.  And we’ll take care of the counting.” - Congressman Peter King

"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order." -- K.M. Heaton

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 Trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted, September the 10th, 2001

World Falls for American Media, Even as It Sours on America

Source: nytimes.com

By TIM ARANGO
Published: November 30, 2008

Shortly after the attacks on 9/11, a delegation of high-level media executives, including the heads of every major studio, met several times with White House officials, including at least once with President Bush’s former top strategist, Karl Rove, to discuss ways that the entertainment industry could play a part in improving the image of the United States overseas.

One of the central ideas was using “soft power” by spreading American television and movies to foreign audiences, especially in the Muslim world, to help sway public opinion.

There were few tangible results from the meetings — lesser ways of supporting the war on terrorism like public service announcements and packages of free DVDs sent to American soldiers.

When did it become CBS policy to reprint neocon propaganda pieces from The Weekly Standard?

The 9/11 Generation And History
Nov. 12, 2008(Weekly Standard) This column was written by Dean Barnett.

In the 1960s, history called the Baby Boomers. They didn't answer the phone.

Confronted with a generation-defining conflict, the cold war, the Boomers--those, at any rate, who came to be emblematic of their generation--took the opposite path from their parents during World War II. Sadly, the excesses of Woodstock became the face of the Boomers' response to their moment of challenge. War protests where agitated youths derided American soldiers as baby-killers added no luster to their image.

Few of the leading lights of that generation joined the military. Most calculated how they could avoid military service, and their attitude rippled through the rest of the century. In the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, military service didn't occur to most young people as an option, let alone a duty.

http://www.radicalislam.info/campaign/fueling-terror/tell-the-world/trut...
Here is what I posted at: http://www.radicalislam.info/campaign/fueling-terror/tell-the-world/trut...

The Truth About Radical Islam
Radical Islam is truly diabolical! To think that 19 amateur pilots could outmaneuver the world's most heavily defended airspace! The 19 amateur pilots were commanded by a man on dialysis, in a cave in Afghanistan!

The diabolical Islamists managed to make 3 steel frame buildings collapse in a single day! No other steel framed structures have ever collapsed due to fire. The buildings fell at near free fall speed, right into their own footprint.

The Western Democracies were blind to Hitler's rise to power, even when he had the Reichstag Building burned and blamed it on his enemies.

Hello Truthseekers & Truthtellers,

propaganda, indoctrination of the younger generations. Polls show younger people are less likely to believe the official story

http://www.ny1.com/content/special_reports/wtc_coverage/85605/students-t...

Ahead of the seventh anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, some New York City students took part today in a nationwide pilot program about educating youth about the attacks.

To kick off discussion of the anniversary, the National September 11th Memorial and Museum showed a short film called "9/11: Stories of Survival and Loss" to students at Millennium High School in Lower Manhattan. The eight-minute piece recounts the attacks from the perspectives of family members, survivors, and rescue workers, like retired Fire Lieutenant and 9/11 first responder Mickey Kross.

The memorial and museum is also working to identify teachers across the country to create a curriculum about the attacks.

Comment: Did you know that common office fires can bring down a building? Willam Rodriques? Who is that? Barry Jennings? Never heard of him. What NASA satelite heat signatures? It was the first "global" collapse of steel structured buildings period. Ignorance is Strength. Long Live Big Brother.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/twintowers/twintowers.html

About the film: The image of featureless steel structures catastrophically crumbling into a fatal dust storm was indelibly imprinted on the minds of millions of people around the world. Yet the enormous plumes of smoke, the soaring balls of fire and the sheer scale of the buildings masked the human face of the tragedy. For the first time, through drama supported by interviews and archival footage, TV audiences will be invited to venture inside the towers to follow the stories of more than a dozen individuals whose daily routine is swept aside by events that changed the world forever.

I took the liberty of uploading this film to Google Video. Based on Jack Shaheen's book of the same name, it explores Hollywood's relentless vilification of Arabs and Muslims both prior to and after 911. Essential viewing.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/

Here's what Greenwald acknowleges in the "mainstream" Salon:

One week after 9/11, a person or persons within the US bioweapons community--referencing "9/11" in the letters--attempted to frame Muslims in a false-flag WMD attack on "opposition" leaders in the US Senate and selected members of the media. This frame-up was aided and abetted by ABC (Disney), whose assets proceeded to "fear-up" the US public in preparation for a war of aggression against Iraq.

But there's more:

Richard Cohen confirms that "a high government official" advised him to take Cipro "soon after Sept 11".
http://www.slate.com/id/2186766/

"The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it."

This corroborates reports that Cheney's staff began taking Cipro on 9/11.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/2953.shtml

Updated after constructive criticism from TruthAction.org and TruthMove.org, thank you to everyone who commented there and here, i've learned from all of it.

Lots of html links in the body; see the opednews.com posting- also, please come leave comments, lots of "in the dark" and "on the fence" people visit OpEdNews.com.

I appreciate constructive (and non) criticism; if you have any ideas for how i can improve this piece, let me know, in the comments or privately- is there anything i can word better? Anything relevant and important that i forgot? Better links I could've used? If i agree, i'll add it.

Note: If you currently believe a 757 did NOT hit the Pentagon, that doesn't mean I think you're Cointelpro or a Troll.

Note to genuine Trolls and Cointelpro agents: I enjoy baiting you, but i like reading your comments even more; how can i get to know you if you don't talk to me?

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=8161

The propaganda campaign is really ramping up ahead of the NIST WTC 7 report and the 7th anniversary

http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=100&article=42931

History lines up 9/11, WWII docs

US cable network History has greenlit a 102-minute special about the September 11 terrorist attacks and a 10-part series following US soldiers in the Second World War.

102 Minutes That Changed America plays out in real time, using amateur and profession footage shot on the day of the attacks. The one-off show will premiere on the anniversary of the attacks later this year.

WWII HD, set for a 2009 debut, will trace the experiences of a group of US soldiers, using 3,000 hours of colour archive footage, diary and journal entries.

The network will incorporate original Library of Congress audio recordings from the war into the series as part of their recently formed multimedia partnership.

The goal is to present the events of the war "not as detached historical facts but rather as profound experiences on the level of a great Hollywood epic," the network said.

Martin Buxton
8 Jul 2008
© C21 Media 2008

Fair Use Notice

Is+White+House+Blocking+Search+for+Bin+Laden?
Pentagon Would Use Special Forces to Nab Bin Laden in Pakistan, New York Times Says

By MARTHA RADDATZ - June 30, 2008

The Pentagon has drafted a secret plan that would send U.S. special forces into the wild tribal regions of Pakistan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, but the White House has balked at giving the mission a green light, The New York Times reported today.

The Bush administration, which has seven months left in its term, gave the go-ahead for the military to draw up the plan to take the war on terror across the Afghan border and into the mountains of Pakistan where bin Laden is believed to be hiding, according to the newspaper.

Intelligence reports have concluded that bin Laden has re-established a network of new training camps, and the number of recruits in those camps has risen to as many as 2,000 in recent months from 200 earlier this year.

(I absolutely believe it is better late than never. Yes, McClellan should have stood up sooner, but at least he's the first to so publicly come out now, and not hide behind coded, read-between-the-lines comments of past Bush White House insiders . . . It's not an insignificant gesture . . . Many others had the opportunity, like Colin Powell, but they were cowardly, fearful or had misplaced loyalty and did not stand up . . . As far as the media's concerned, of course we all know the pressure came from the top on down. If we had a truly free press, we would not be where we are today. Betsy)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/053108a.html

McClellan and the Media 'Enablers'

By Jeff Cohen
May 31, 2008

Editor’s Note: Scott McClellan’s new book may be welcome in that it corroborates many claims from George W. Bush’s critics. But it’s still galling that so many prominent journalists who bowed before Bush’s bullying in 2002-03 have only seen their careers flourish.
In this guest essay, media critic Jeff Cohen revisits the journalistic cowardice before the Iraq invasion even though many media stars would prefer Americans not remember:

This story (and Scott McClellan's book) should make our jobs a little easier . . . I wonder how many Americans will still believe that McClellan et al. didn't REALLY know what was going down in the White House?

McClellan's fooling himself (as) much the same way as Bush does (believes his own spin and propaganda) if he wants the reader to believe that "he and his subordinates were not 'employing out-and-out deception' to make their case for war in 2002".

Plausible denial, willful ignorance . . . (At least this book is a step in the right direction.)

The GWBush Administration will be remembered in history as a particular time when integrity and character were MIA in the extreme (and perhaps this will help reveal the truth behind 9/11) . . . . As one bumper sticker reads, "At least Nixon had the decency to resign."

Will anyone connected to the GWBush White House ever stand up and do the right thing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MInBl9ZB37Y&feature=related(Dave Matthews Band w/ Robert Randolph "Stand Up"

Betsy

I've long been interested in the techniques demonstrated by Derren Brown on his "Mind Control" programs in the US (SciFi Channel) and the UK (BBC), especially when he demonstrates that by repeating words over and over again in such a way that people don't even notice you're doing it, you can put ideas into their heads that they think are their own. (I think the science-y sounding name for it is "neuro linguistic programming")

I'm sure this was behind the choice of "United" and "American" airlines (instead of TWA, Delta, Southwest, Northwest, Sun Country, Air Alaska, etc etc etc) for the 9/11 attacks. I threw together a little video to demonstrate my point, using only a couple hours of NBC footage from that morning:

No wonder everybody felt like such "united" "americans" in the days following 9/11, obediently waiting for our heroic commander-in-chief to give us our marching orders.

The following article (same title as above) shows what has happened and is happening to the so-called "free press". Some of it is SOP, some of it is "yellow journalism", some of it is extreme party hackism, and some of it, perhaps most of it these days, is "corporate media".

We've never lived in the America we've always lived in — except in the ideal, which was always the point. You seek the ideal, and then fall short as reality sets in. But that does not mean you stop seeking the ideal.

Excerpt:

How the New York Times Won 2004 for Bush

By Ted Rall

21/05/08 "ICH" -- -- Should the news media be patriotic? When a journalist uncovers a government secret, which comes first–national security or the public’s right to know?

In the United States, reporters consider themselves Americans first, journalists second. That means consulting the government before going public with a state secret. “When I was at ABC,” James Bamford told Time in 2006, “we always checked with the Administration in power when we thought we had something of concern, and there was usually some way to work it out.”

From AlterNet:

If Cheney & Co. Had Really Plotted the 9/11 Attacks ...

By Matt Taibbi, Spiegel & Grau. Posted May 19, 2008.

Matt Taibbi's hilarious re-enactment of the secret govt. conspiracy (that never happened) to conduct the attacks.

The following is an adapted excerpt from Matt Taibbi's new book, The Great Derangement" (Spiegel and Grau, 2008).

The 9/11 Truth movement is really distinguished by a kind of defiant unfamiliarity with the actual character of America's ruling class. In 9/11 lore the people who staff the White House, the security agencies, the Pentagon and groups like PNAC and the Council of Foreign Relations are imagined to be a monolithic, united class of dastardly, swashbuckling risk-takers with permanent hard-ons for Bourne Supremacy-style "false flag" and "black bag" operations, instead of the mundanely greedy, risk-averse, backstabbing, lawn-tending, half-clever suburban golfers they are in real life. It completely misunderstands the nature of American government -- fails to see that the old maxim about "the business of America is business" is absolutely true, that the federal government in this country is really just a lo-rent time-share property seasonally occupied by this or that clan of financial interests, each of which takes its 4-year turn at the helm tinkering with the tax laws and regulatory code and the rates at the Fed in the way it thinks will best keep the money train rolling.

Narrated by Sean Penn.

Thanks to Betsy for the heads up.

John Doraemi

"... and Popular Mechanics’ issue on the subject is a good place to start."
-Singer turned pundit, David Rovics/CommonDreams.org

CommonDreams is a highly visited "progressive" news site. The focus there is mainly on reprinting corporate-produced pieces that somehow share the biases of the editors. They do also however print editorials from freelance writers, and when the issue of the 9/11 cover up is breached, only one side is permitted to weigh in. And that side is permitted to outright attack and to libel the other side, the 'other' side being the amorphous "9/11 Truth Movement."

No response in kind is permitted; it doesn't matter the content, nor the quality of the evidence. This policy has rightly earned CommonDreams the reputation of "gatekeepers" among disgruntled readers.

I thought the article re this issue yesterday on the front page of the NYT (and posted here on 911Blogger) was explosive. Yet not much more than a collective yawn today from America and/or other media outlets . . . much like Bush's recent admittance of torture knowledge+ on ABC. What the hell is going on? Are "we" all that numb? I don't think so . . . But there needs to be a media-driven outrage to jumpstart this . . . . a Catch-22 perhaps but maybe we're getting closer to this changing . . . I think some in the media are getting sick of themselves and their companies . . . Betsy

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/042108.html

US News Media's Latest Disgrace

By Robert Parry
April 21, 2008

After prying loose 8,000 pages of Pentagon documents, the New York Times has proven what should have been obvious years ago: the Bush administration manipulated public opinion on the Iraq War, in part, by funneling propaganda through former senior military officers who served as expert analysts on TV news shows.

If this doesn't make people question the Al-Qaeda myth I don't know what will :

The Wen Wei Po, a Hong Kong newspaper backed by the China mainland, said Uighur extremists were colluding with the exiled Tibetan Youth Congress and even al Qaeda to target the Beijing Games.
"Al Qaeda, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and Tibetan Youth Congress are all planning to make the Beijing Olympic Games the target of terror attacks, and have strengthened collusion and collaboration," said the paper in a commentary.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080411/ts_nm/china_tibet_dc

Damn, I'm afraid now. Dalai bin Lama and his hordes of Buddhist are coming to get us with their illegal
suicide-weapons of mass-Buddhism ..

Homeland Born and Bred

Sojourn into the outer recesses of a nation bordering on madness, into a land deeply disturbed and emotionally bewildered, a world of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism, of fanaticism and fundamentalism, entering a case study into fantasyland and escapism, taking a pilgrimage into realms both of purposeful ignorance and blindness, of electing lifelong incompetents based on wanting to have a beer with them, walking through the dark valley of indifference, climbing the monolithic mountain of hubris, finally reaching the hallowed halls of smoke and mirrors, a place where only the blind lead the blind and where the deafening roars of death and destruction are easily suppressed in delusion and denial. Journey, if you will, into a nation that lost its moral compass inside the dungeons of fear and hatred.

Enter what fascists call the Homeland, what patriots used to call the United States of America, now named, simply, and appropriately, Amerika, a place where corporations enjoy more rights and protections than the People, where corporations – through their products and policies – help kill hundreds of thousands of human beings every year in the name of profit over people, making them mass murderers on a scale reserved only for humanity’s worst; a land controlled by the military-energy-industrial complex, with war the engine for unimaginable profits; a nation now without a Constitution, nor a moral standing; a country that has developed a thirst for human blood and an appetite for destruction; a land of Manifest Destiny leaving death, suffering and destruction in its wake; a sadist entity that develops and refines its crimes against humanity it inflicts upon the people of the world by first practicing them on its own citizenry.

Manifestations of Intent

Can you smell the smoked fumes of a discombobulated economic engine that has ceased to function, its synergy spitting and sputtering, its many parts thrashed by the claws, and vices, of neoliberal capitalism? Can you feel the dismantling of the economic spark plug, the American consumer, as our livelihoods are sacrificed to the greed, and incompetence, of the establishment and as the value of our lives is further enslaved to the Almighty Dollar and its puppet masters?

Can you hear the roar of authoritarian Machiavelli-types, of which many exist, cheering as the Constitution is discarded like yesterday’s trash, its principles and foundations burned inside the incinerator of fascism? Can you hear the searing of one of the greatest documents of governance ever created by man as it goes up in flames thanks to the kerosene thrown at it by American corporatists in power, its ashes slowly scattering into the realm of nothingness?

The virally-hyped Paramount movie Cloverfield opens nationwide today.

It seems to accomplish several psychological effects with regard to 9/11 and the "War on Terror":

1) Revives imagery and visceral fear of 9/11. Cam-corder style intensifies and personalizes the effect.

2) Reinforces sense of implacable, "alien" evil threat--complete with totemic "decapitation" of the Statue of Liberty and venomous "parasites" that attack without warning.

3) Showcases latest military hardware (eg. F-22) and tactics (notably urban warfare), and portrays the Pentagon as savior.

4) Introduces use of nuclear weapons (even on US soil) as a hypothetically necessary option.

Pretending to oppose "exploitation", FOX has already used it as an opportunity to evoke 9/11 and display a 9/11 victim's mother.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8ovbOCBqg0

Time is promoting it with a heavy hand:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1704356,00.html

"We wanted to let people live through their wildest fears but be in a safe place where the enemy is the size of a skyscraper instead of some stateless, unseen cowardly terrorist."

On the NPR show [Justice Talking] on Jan 13, 2008, host Margot Adler interviewed former Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Pete Earley on the topic of "Treatment Laws and the Mentally Ill" also titled "The Rights of the Mentally Ill." Earley described living with a son who has bipolar disorder and who at times was "off his medication." Earley recounted the difficulties of getting law enforcement and medical resource people to help his family and his son. The story is tragic and disheartening until the end when Earley tells Adler that he can accept the craziness of his son's thinking related to 9/11. Here is the transcript of the end of the interview in Earley's voice: